Conceptualising work-integrated learning to support pre-service teachers' pedagogic reasoning

Much South African research suggests that work-integrated learning (WIL) experiences of pre-service teachers are uneven. Their learning depends heavily on the functionality of the school and on the presence and commitment of the mentor teacher. Even then, mentor feedback tends to focus on generic comments on classroom routines rather than providing an account of their teaching practices. In this conceptual paper, we draw on a range of literature and studies to argue that the value of WIL would be greatly enhanced if pre-service teachers and their mentors discuss both the visible classroom routines and the less visible reasoning that inform the pedagogic choices that teachers make. This focus on pedagogic reasoning could foreground both the principled knowledge base that teachers need, as well as the contextual responsiveness and ethical orientations needed to become a specialised knower within the teaching profession. WIL therefore needs to provide pre-service teachers with explicit, structured opportunities to consider how the teachers they observe enact their teaching and why. They also need to articulate the pedagogic choices they make in the design and delivery of their own lessons. We argue that structuring WIL as a space in which to recognise and engage in forms of pedagogic reasoning addresses some of the challenges of the uneven quality of student learning identified in research on WIL in the South African context.

Coaching Childcare Providers to Support Toddlers' Gesture Use With Children Experiencing Early Childhood Poverty

Purpose The purpose of this study is to examine the impact of an intervention in which childcare providers (CCPs) are coached to support toddlers' gesture use during every day classroom routines. Method This study uses a multiple-baseline across strategies single-case experimental design to examine the impact of a coaching intervention on three CCPs' use of communication strategies with toddlers experiencing early childhood poverty. The CCPs were coached with a systematic framework called Setting the Stage, Observation and Opportunities to Embed, Problem-solving and Planning, Reflection and Review as they learned to implement three strategies to support toddlers' gesture use— modeling gestures with a short phrase, opportunities to gesture, and responding/expanding child gestures . CCPs were coached during book sharing and another classroom routine of their choice. Social validity data on the coaching approach and on the intervention strategies were gathered from postintervention interviews. Results The visual analysis and nonoverlap of all pairs' effect size indicates that the coaching intervention had a functional relation with CCPs' use of modeling gestures and responding/expanding gestures during book sharing, play, and circle time. Social validity data indicate that CCPs found the coaching framework supportive of their learning and feelings of self-efficacy, and that the intervention strategies supported their toddlers' communication. Conclusions The coaching framework was used to increase CCP strategy use during everyday classroom routines with toddlers. CCPs endorsed the coaching approach and the intervention strategies. This study adds to the literature supporting efforts to enhance children's earliest language learning environments. Supplemental Material https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.14044055

Rasch Analysis of Authentic Evaluation of Young Children's Functioning in Classroom Routines

This study evaluated the functioning of children in early childhood education classroom routines, using the 3M Functioning in Preschool Routines Scale. A total of 366 children aged 36 to 70 months and 22 teachers from six early childhood education centers in Spain participated in the study. The authors used the Rasch model to determine the item fit and the difficulty of the items in relation to children's ability levels in this age range. The Rasch Differential Item Functioning (DIF) analysis by child age groups showed that the item difficulty differed according to the children's age and according to their levels of competence. The results of this study supported the reliability and validity of the 3M scale for assessing children's functioning in preschool classroom routines. A few items, however, were identified as needing to be reworded and more difficult items needed to be added to increase the scale difficulty level to match the performance of children with higher ability levels. The authors introduced the new and reworded items based on the results of this study and the corresponding ICF codes per item. Moreover, the authors indicate how to use the ICF Performance Qualifiers in relation to the 3M scale response categories for developing a functioning profile for the child.

Ed tech’s failure during the pandemic, and what comes after

For decades, technology advocates have claimed that we are on the cusp of a complete transformation in education. But, as Justin Reich explains, such transformations have not yet come to pass. Even during the COVID-19 pandemic, teachers did not use technology to significantly alter their teaching. Instead, technology enabled them to maintain many of their classroom routines (using learning management systems or video conferencing) or supplement their usual instruction (using gamified apps). Teachers did, however, tinker with their methods throughout the pandemic, gradually improving over time. Reich suggests that this tinkering framework is a more realistic way to think about ed tech’s potential to support teaching and learning.

Move Your Brain!

Active breaks have received great attention both among teachers and researchers and are used by those who pursuit to take advantage of all its benefits. Because of these benefits, many teachers or schools have incorporated active breaks into their daily classroom routines. However, to the authors' knowledge, there is not any program aimed entirely at preschool age. Also, the type of activities proposed in these programs are mostly mechanic with low cognitive engagement while some authors argue that cognitively engaging physical activity is more beneficial for cognitive and academic performance than mechanic activities. For these reasons, this chapter proposes a new active break program aimed at preschool children. This program, entitled “Move Your Brain,” will be composed of physical activities with inherent cognitive demands to challenge the children's brains.

Creating Resilient Classrooms and Schools

This chapter describes the Resilient Classrooms protocol for fostering classroom environments that promote students’ emotional well-being and academic success. Descriptions relate key elements of developmental resilience research to the 4 Resilient Classrooms steps: collecting student surveys describing relationships and support for self-agency in the classroom; consulting with students and colleagues to make sense of the survey data; creating and carrying out a plan to modify classroom routines and practices to strengthen supports for resilience; and re-administering the surveys to assess the impact of the plan. An example of a Resilient Classrooms project in Beijing, China, illustrates the acceptability and viability of the Resilient Classrooms protocol in other cultures.

The use of Classroom routines in memorization and further development of communicative competence

The paper deals with the issue of memorization and acquisition of a target language unit by performing multiple repetitions while avoiding dullness and boredom. The author highlights the considerable role of classroom routines in memorization of target language units and further strengthening of communicative competence. Classroom routines are regarded as a powerful resource to solve a significant teaching problem connected with performing multiple repetitions and at the same time avoiding monotony. This article aims to analyze the use of classroom daily routines in memorizing target language units and to offer a set of activities aimed at forming and developing such components of students’ communicative competence as grammatical competence (words and rules) and discourse one (cohesion and coherence). Various methods, strategies, techniques based on multiple repetitions of the same content are taken into consideration. Special attention is paid to drilling techniques. The peculiarities of meaningful repetition are revealed and as a result, the meaningful drilling technics are offered. Learners of foreign languages retain new language units much more successfully not by rote memorization but when they get frequent repetition of these language units, make meaningful connections to real life and when these connections are personalized. In real life, people are frequently forced to repeat the same many times while performing daily routines. Such kind of repetition is natural. In foreign language teaching performing daily routines acts like an artificial linguistic environment and can work as a kind of language immersion. The author offers some examples of activities aimed at forming, developing, and strengthening such components of students’ communicative competence as grammatical competence (words and rules) and discourse one (cohesion and coherence). They are described in the most frequently used formats. Classroom routines are certain to be a powerful resource to solve the problem connected with performing memorization and at the same time avoiding dullness and tedium. It is proved that well-organized daily classroom routines performing activities ensure substance memorization, not rote one. Moreover, properly organized daily classroom routines are supposed to reduce teacher talking time and consequently to increase student talking time.

Classroom routines…

Establishing classroom rules and routines is a vital part of good teaching. Matt Bromley advises trainee teachers and NQTs on developing and building on effective practice